Next week, New York gets a taste of Los Angeles as Gallery 1988 brings their signature event, Crazy 4 Cult, back to the Big Apple. The show opens December 13 and while we’ll have much more on the event in the upcoming days, two pieces in particular deserve to be called out.

They’re paintings by Jason Edmiston, who recently had a solo gallery show at Mondo in Austin, TX. Edmiston captured the climax of Steven Spielberg‘s Raiders of the Lost Arkwith two paintings showing Colonel Dietrich and Major Arnold Toht in the horrific final moments. These works aren’t for the faint of heart, but they will find a place in the heart of any Indiana Jones fan. Check them out below. Read More »

In 1981, PBS aired a terrific, in-depth “making-of” special about Raiders of the Lost Ark. Some of the material here has been, er, raided for other docs about the creation of the movie, but you can watch the full special below.

There’s a lot of great stuff in here, as the special goes into great detail about some elements of the production. But my fave bits might be when the cameras catch Harrison Ford at his most sardonic. The actor comments on being dragged behind a truck as “just one more useless experience,” before saying “I’m sure it’s not dangerous. If it was dangerous they would have waited until we’d got more of the movie done.”

There is also a lot of excellent footage of Steven Spielberg at work directing, and it’s useful to see how he gets performances out of different situations. Directing can be a different job not just from movie to movie, but shot to shot, and you’ll see that illuminated here. Read More »

A behind the scenes photo from Raiders of the Lost Ark has unearthed an interesting story from one of the most iconic adventure films of all time. As we all know, when the Ark is opened at the end of the film, all of the evil Nazis and their supporters are killed in incredibly gruesome ways. The worst was saved for Belloq (Paul Freeman), Indiana Jones’ main nemesis throughout the film. In the movie, his head explodes while being engulfed in flames. However, that wasn’t what director Steven Spielberg originally intended. Read More »

Paramount Home Video and Lucasfilm have officially announced the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade individually for the first time ever in High Definition. As you may recall, the original Indiana Jones trilogy films were previously only released as part of the Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures box set, forcing fans to own the much despised fourth installment Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

(A side rant: the box set didn’t feature the television series The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, yet still claimed to be the “Complete Adventures.”)

Now the first three films will be released on bare-bones Blu-ray discs (with a digital copies available through iTunes) on December 17th, 2013. Digital HD versions via streaming and download services will be available earlier on November 19th, 2013. Read the full press release with full special feature details after the jump, and see all the new cover art.

Though you may not know their names, odds are you’ve heard the story ofChris Strompolos and Eric Zala. They’re the two long-time friends who, at the age of 11, set out to make a shot by shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And they did! It took them seven years, but their homemade version of Steven Spielberg‘s 1981 masterpiece has since become a cult classic, screening at small festivals and repertory houses before being documented in the bookRaiders by Alan Eisenstock. Now, in a beautiful twist of fate, Hollywood has bought the rights to that book and plan to make Strompolos and Zala’s filmmaking adventure into an adventure film of its own.

Jeremy Coon, who produced Napoleon Dynamite, has just optioned the rights to Eisenstock’s book. He plans to first direct a documentary about the story, then turn that into a narrative feature. Strompolos and Zala are attached as producers and their life rights are part of the deal. Read More »

What do you do after you make awesome posters for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi? Move onto that other incredible Lucasfilm franchise: Indiana Jones. We’re proud to debut artist Dave Perillo‘s new poster for Steven Spielberg‘s Raiders of the Lost Ark from Acme Archives. This fantastic representation of the best adventure film of all time be on sale Thursday September 26. Check it out below. Read More »

Here’s a trailer for a book spawned by a fan film spawned by the greatest adventure film ever made. The adventure film is Steven Spielberg‘s Raiders of the Lost Ark and the fan film is Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala‘s Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, the most famous fan film ever made, a shot by shot, low budget remake of Indiana Jones’ first adventure. Now, author Alan Eisenstock has written a detailed book on the making of the fan film called Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made and a trailer has been released teasing the book, which is out November 13. Check it out below. Read More »

I have nothing but respect for Armond White, but to say his opinions are unpopular is like saying the Sun will rise. It’s a foregone conclusion, and two of his most recent posts fit that bill and then some. In one post, he argues that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is better than Raiders of the Lost Ark and in another he says Paul W.S. Anderson is a better filmmaker than both Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson, comparing Resident Evil: Retribution and The Master. (That one is a few weeks old but we hadn’t written about it yet.)

The scary thing is, White is such a talented, smart writer and has such confidence in his outlandish arguments you almost want to believe them. Can he convince you? Read some excerts and link to the full articles after the jump. Read More »

The practice of theatrically rereleasing classic films seems to be picking up steam, and the latest to get new theatrical bookings is John Carpenter‘s 1978 film Halloween. Carpenter’s movie solidified the slasher genre and wrote much of the roadmap for ’80s horror. It is one of the most successful independent films ever released, and for a long time was one of the most profitable movies, period, as it made nearly $50m in the US alone based on a budget of a couple hundred thousand dollars.

On October 25 the movie will hit theaters again. A list of theaters will be released today, so check that link over the next couple hours for more info. Other than that we don’t have many more details on the rerelease, but you can see the new poster for the film after the break. There you can also get info on the fact that Paramount also announces that “due to popular demand,” the Raiders of the Lost Ark theatrical re-release has been extended from a one-week run to a 300-theater booking starting today. Read More »

You might think there’s not much to see in an IMAX trailer for a film that has been out for decades, and you’re basically right, especially when looking at that trailer online rather than in an actual IMAX theater. But this trailer, which advertises the IMAX upconversion of Raiders of the Lost Ark, also comes with some other great info. AMC theaters is planning a marathon of the full Indy series to coincide with the Blu-ray release of the films, and Steven Spielberg talks about using IMAX for other films. Read More »